Tuesday, March 30, 2010

When we saw Tangled Noodle & Savor the Thyme's Eating Your Words Challenge 2010 we knew we wanted to join the fun. For some reason, we decided almost right away that we wanted to spell something with sausage. Really, I think we were just looking for an excuse to try our hand at making homemade sausage again. Since it was pork sausage, we figured there was only have one thing to say...UncookedCookedDoes this mean we have a bit of a sick sense of humor?

Just like little piggies we ate this sausage right up. It was wonderful with some spicy brown mustard & a sauerkraut relish. We were very happy by the mixture of spices especially the large amount of garlic & the caraway (Matt almost left the caraway out but it ended up being one of our favorite things about this).The first time we made homemade sausage we weren't happy with the texture at all. This time was 100% better. First & most importantly, we made sure to buy a nice fatty cut of pork. A lot of sausage recipes even tell you to add extra fat. Secondly, we used the coarse setting on our meat grinder.

Some notes about casings: we used natural casings that we get at our local grocery store, Lund's, from the butcher. They cost about $10 a pound but you'll only need less than $2 worth. You can store any casings you don't use in your refrigerator for 1 to 2 years (though we find they stink). If your local grocer or butcher makes their own sausage they will probably have casings to sell. Any casings you don't use can be stored in your refrigerator for 1 to 2 years (though we find they start to stink). You can also buy collagen casings at stores that carry supplies for hunters like Gander Mountain. Natural casings are best for fresh sausages while collagen is good for fresh & smoked sausage.

Run the pork through a meat grinder set at a coarse grind. Using your hands, mix in the seasonings & cold water.

Makes enough filling for 12 6" sausages.

Rinse the sausage casings to remove any grit. Feed the sausage casings on to the sausage stuffer. Tie a knot at the end of the casing.Slowly filled the casing with the ground meat, try to keep the width the same the whole way. Create one long sausage. Stop filling when you have 2 - 3 inches of casing left. Tie a knot at the end.Twist into desired length sausages, twist clockwise at the first sausage end then counterclockwise at the second sausage end & so on.Sausages can then be steamed, boiled or grilled. We steamed ours for about 15 minutes until cooked through & then finished them on the grill to get a crispy brown skin. These would probably also be fantastic smoked.